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NRL News
Page 1
September 2009
Volume 36
Issue 9
Obama, some news media misrepresent provisions
Federal government would fund abortion under
health bills soon to be voted on in Congress
WASHINGTON (September 3, 2009)—The Democrat-controlled U.S. House of
Representatives is expected to vote soon—perhaps in late
September—on “health care reform” legislation (H.R. 3200) that
contains far-reaching pro-abortion provisions, including a new
federal government insurance plan that would cover all elective
abortions.
Leaders
of U.S. Senate Democrats are also planning to push sweeping
health-care restructuring legislation to the floor in the near
future. A Senate committee has approved a health care bill that
contains provisions that some pro-life analysts believe could result
in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.
The bills
are being pushed hard by President Obama and by top Democratic
congressional leaders, including pro-abortion House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi (D-Ca.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.). The
Democrats hold majority control of both the House and the Senate,
occupying about three-fifths of the seats in each house.
President
Obama and many other Democratic officeholders have tried hard to
deflect attention away from the pro-abortion components of the
bills, often employing misleading statements and outright
misinformation. Many in the mainstream news media have accepted such
misinformation at face value, even in some cases rebuking pro-life
groups for disseminating material that accurately reflected the
abortion-related implications of the bills.
On August
19, Obama said that it was “not true” and a “fabrication” to say
that the legislation would result in “government funding of
abortion.” In an immediate response, the National Right to Life
Committee (NRLC) said, “President Obama today brazenly
misrepresented the abortion-related component of the health care
legislation that his congressional allies and staff have crafted.”
The
charge and countercharge drew the attention of the independent
center FactCheck.org, which is affiliated with the Annenberg Public
Policy Center.
In an
analysis published August 21, titled “Abortion: Which Side is
Fabricating?,” FactCheck.org concluded that under the Obama-backed
legislation, “... it’s likely that any new federal insurance plan
would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that. Low-
and moderate-income persons who would choose the ‘public plan’ would
qualify for federal subsidies to purchase it. Private plans that
cover abortion also could be purchased with the help of federal
subsidies. Therefore, we judge that the president goes too far when
he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions
‘fabrications.’”
FactCheck.org also reported, “The NRLC’s [Legislative Director
Douglas] Johnson said ‘the bill backed by the White House (H.R.
3200) explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all
elective abortions.’ And our analysis shows that Johnson’s statement
is correct.”
Despite
that rebuke, Obama and many other Democratic officeholders have
continued to make misleading statements about the abortion-related
components of the legislation. For example, Speaker Pelosi on August
28 put out a press release which said, “The bill preserves the
status quo in abortion policy. In fact, the bill clearly spells out
that no federal funds can be used to pay for abortions ...”
Nevertheless, there is evidence that the public education efforts by
NRLC and other pro-life groups are having an effect. By mid-August,
at least one national poll found that most Americans recognized that
the legislation would result in government funding of abortion.
House
Committee Action
In late
July, a bill proposed by the House Democratic leadership, H.R. 3200,
was considered in three different committees. All three committees
voted down NRLC-backed amendments to prevent the bills from
mandating coverage of abortions and to prevent federal subsidies for
abortions, as only a few Democrats joined the minority Republican
members in support of the amendments. (For details, see “Congress to
Vote in September on Obama-Backed Health Bills That Would Greatly
Expand Abortion,” July/August NRL News, page 1.)
One of
the three committees, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce,
chaired by pro-abortion champion Henry Waxman (D-Ca.), adopted an
amendment written by Waxman’s staff and offered by Rep. Lois Capps
(D-Ca.). The amendment was adopted over the objections of pro-life
committee members and pro-life groups.
NRLC’s
Douglas Johnson explained, “Under the Capps-Waxman Amendment, the
Obama Administration would be explicitly authorized to pay for all
abortions under the big new federal insurance program called the
‘public option.’ This means that a person would not be allowed to
enroll in the new government plan unless he or she is willing to pay
an additional premium to cover the cost of elective abortions—in
effect, an abortion surcharge.
“Abortionists would send bills for abortions to the federal
Department of Health and Human Services, and they would receive
payment checks drawn on a federal Treasury account. The funds in
this account are government funds, public funds. This would be
direct federal government funding of abortion, pure and simple.”
In
addition, H.R. 3200 would establish a new federal program to provide
subsidies (called “affordability credits”) to help tens of millions
of Americans purchase health insurance. Under the Capps-Waxman
Amendment, these subsidies could be used to purchase private
insurance plans that cover elective abortions.
While the
amendment says that the private insurers are not supposed to count
the cost of the abortions against the amount they receive in federal
subsidies, Johnson said this was “a bookkeeping sham to conceal the
reality—taxpayer subsidies for plans that cover abortion on demand,
a drastic departure from longstanding federal policy.”
(For
additional information on the abortion-related problems with H.R.
3200, see “Key Points on Pro-Abortion Provisions in Obama-Backed
Health Care Bills” on page 21 of this issue.)
Tim Ryan,
Pro-Life Impersonator
The Capps
Amendment was heavily promoted in the news media as a “compromise”
by Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio).
“Tim Ryan
is working hand-in-hand with Planned Parenthood—he presents himself
as a pro-life lawmaker only for the purpose of trying to undercut
the efforts of the real pro-life lawmakers,” said NRLC’s Johnson.
“Because so many in the news media have shown themselves gullible
enough to fall for this ploy, NRLC has established a special webpage
titled ‘Congressman Tim Ryan, Pro-Life Impersonator.’” (http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/RyanUpdate.html)
As a
member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, on July 7
Ryan voted to remove a longstanding ban on the use of
congressionally appropriated funds to pay for abortions in the
District of Columbia, a federal jurisdiction.
Hyde
Amendment
Many
Democratic lawmakers have told constituents that a longstanding
federal law, the Hyde Amendment, would prevent government funding of
abortion under the proposed legislation. The Hyde Amendment
prohibits the funding of abortions (with narrow exceptions) with
monies contained in the annual appropriations bill that funds the
federal Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which
includes the federal Medicaid program.
However,
NRLC has issued documentation, backed up by memoranda issued by the
nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, demonstrating that the
government insurance plan and the premium subsidy program that H.R.
3200 would create would receive all of their funds through funding
pipelines other than the HHS appropriations bill – and therefore,
the proposed new programs would not be covered by the Hyde
Amendment.
(An NRLC
memorandum demonstrating that the Hyde Amendment would not curb
government funding of abortion under the health care bills is posted
on the NRLC website at
http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/NRLCmemoHydeAmendmentWillNotApply.html)
Next
Steps in House?
Pro-life
leaders in the House, including Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mi.) and Chris
Smith (R-NJ), who co-chair the House Pro-Life Caucus, and Rep. Joe
Pitts (R-Pa.), who chairs a conservative caucus called the Values
Action Team, have vowed to carry on the battle.
Stupak
says that he will file an amendment, backed by NRLC and other
pro-life groups, that would prohibit funds authorized by H.R. 3200
from going to health plans that cover abortions, except to save the
life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. (This amendment
failed on a 27-31 vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.)
If adopted, the Stupak Amendment would prevent the government plan
from covering elective abortions, and would prevent federal
subsidies to private plans that cover abortion.
However,
there are already clear signs that the House Democratic leadership
will not permit the House to even vote on the Stupak Amendment.
Before
the House takes up any bill, it must first approve by majority vote
a resolution (called “the rule”) issued by the House Rules
Committee, which specifies which amendments, if any, may be
considered on the House floor. The Rules Committee is an arm of the
Speaker of the House.
On August
12, Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (D-NY) said at a press
conference that the “rule” on H.R. 3200 will not permit a vote on
the Stupak Amendment.
Stupak
has said publicly that if that is so, he will vote against the rule,
and urge other pro-life Democrats to join him.
If no
Republican lawmakers vote for the rule, and if as few as 40 of the
256 House Democrats also voted against the rule, Pelosi would be
unable to move H.R. 3200 to the House floor.
“The vote
on the rule is likely to be the most important pro-life vote to
occur in the House in years,” said NRLC’s Johnson. “A vote for the
Pelosi rule on H.R. 3200 is a vote for direct funding of elective
abortion by the federal government, and for federal subsidies to
private plans that cover abortion,”
On August
11, House members received a letter signed by the chairman of the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life
Activities, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia. The letter said
that under H.R. 3200, as revised by the Capps Amendment, “those
constrained by economic necessity or other factors to purchase the
‘public plan’ will be forced by the federal government to pay
directly and specifically for abortion coverage. This is the
opposite of the policy in every other federal health program.
Government will force low-income Americans to subsidize abortions
for others (and abortion coverage for themselves) even if they find
abortion morally abhorrent.”
Rigali
referred to the abortion funding provisions as “unacceptable
features,” and concluded, “Please support amendments to correct
them, and oppose any rule for consideration of H.R. 3200 that would
block such amendments.”
Senate
HELP Committee bill
The
timetable for action on health care reform on the Senate floor
remains unclear.
In April,
the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America
(PPFA), the nation’s largest abortion provider, said that health
care restructuring legislation would be a “platform” to achieve
“access” to abortion for “all women.”
The
“Affordable Health Choices Act” (as yet unnumbered), proposed in the
Senate in June by the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Ma.), contained
provisions that, NRLC analysts concluded, would have sweeping
pro-abortion effects consistent with the PPFA’s stated goal.
The
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee –
chaired by Senator Chris Dodd (D-Ct.) in the absence of the ailing
Kennedy – rejected all pro-life amendments to the bill in July.
Dodd celebrated the defeat of the pro-life amendments in a July 14
release: “We cannot allow critical services to be denied to women
based on the ideological concerns of a few. That is why I opposed
the anti-choice amendments. It is also why I am proud to support
ongoing efforts to ensure women have access to family planning and
reproductive health services.”
The
committee approved the bill on a party-line vote on July 15.
(Kennedy died on August 25.)
“The HELP
Committee bill would result in federally mandated coverage of
abortion by nearly all health plans, federally mandated recruitment
of abortionists by local health networks, and nullification of many
state abortion laws,” said NRLC’s Johnson. “It would also result in
federal funding of abortion on a massive scale.”
However,
Senate Democratic leaders have not yet attempted to move the HELP
bill to the Senate floor because a number of centrist Democratic
senators have balked at its cost and at certain components,
including the proposed federal government insurance plan (the
“public option”). A group made up of three senators from each
party, dubbed the “Gang of Six,” has been meeting for months to try
to draft an alternative bill, but at NRL News deadline it was
unclear whether any bill would emerge from that process, or how it
would deal with pro-life concerns.
Action Needed Now
To read
what you can do to prevent enactment of the expansive pro-abortion
legislation discussed above, please see the clip-out action alert on
page 1 of this issue.
For a
short summary of the abortion-related problems with H.R. 3200 and
with the “Affordable Health Choices Act,” see “Key Points on
Pro-Abortion Provisions in Obama-Backed Health Care Bills” on page
21 of this issue. (This factsheet can also be downloaded from the
NRLC webpage at
http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/Index.html, along with additional
documentation on this issue.)
For
updates on the legislative situation, check in frequently at
www.nrlactioncenter.com
For the
latest in videos, news coverage of interest, and downloadable
resources, go to
http://stoptheabortionagenda.com
Obama
Promised Abortion Inclusion in “Health Care Reform”
On July
17, 2007, during Barack Obama’s campaign for the Democratic
presidential nomination, he appeared before the annual conference of
the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (the “political arm” of the
nation’s largest abortion provider). Speaking of his plans for
“health care reform,” Obama said, “in my mind, reproductive care is
essential care. It is basic care, and so it is at the center, and
at the heart of the plan that I propose.”
He also
stated, “What we’re doing is to say that we’re going to set up a
public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don’t
have health insurance. It’ll be a plan that will provide all
essential services, including reproductive services.”
Under his
plan, Obama explained, people could choose to keep their existing
private health care plans, but “insurers are going to have to abide
by the same rules in terms of providing comprehensive care,
including reproductive care ... that’s going to be absolutely
vital.”
Regarding
Obama’s statements, the Chicago Tribune reported: “Asked about his
proposal for expanded access to health insurance, Obama said it
would cover ‘reproductive-health services.’ Contacted afterward, an
Obama spokesman said that included abortions.” (“Democrats Pledge
Support for Wide Access to Abortion,” by Mike Dorning, Chicago
Tribune, July 18, 2007.)
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